Adem Jashari

Adem Jashari (28 November 1955-7 March 1998) was a commander and one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which he led in a guerrilla war against Yugoslavia after 1991. Jashari's killing by the Yugoslav Army on 7 March 1998 along with his family led to the start of the Kosovo War as the KLA began a large rebellion against the Serbs.

Biography
Adem Jashari was born on 28 November 1955 in Prekaz, SAP Kosovo, in Yugoslavia. He was the brother of Hamez Jashari. Jashari was descended from Albanian guerrillas that resisted the Serbs decades prior, and he was rarely seen without a gun, growing up on Albanian war stories. In 1991 he joined the armed uprising against the Serbs, and founded the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) with the assistance of the Albanian Army, who bailed him out of prison. After 1993, the Kosovans launched several attacks against the Serbs, and in response to a KLA attack on Serbian police on 5 March 1998, the Yugoslav Army launched a counterattack against the KLA.

Serbian special forces were dispatched to Prekaz immediately after the attack, ostensibly to capture the terrorists, but their real goal was to eliminate the suspects and their families. The Jashari brothers, Adem's wife Adilje, and his 13-year-old son Kushtrim were killed, among 58 Kosovars killed in the attack on Prekaz, which began the Kosovo War.